TikTok’s policy chief defended the platform’s safety measures as the European Union pushes ahead with restricting children’s access to social media amid intensifying scrutiny of tech giants.
Ali Law, TikTok’s director of public policy and government affairs in Northern Europe, told CNBC’s Karen Tso and Steve Sedgewick that the social media giant was built in a “safety by design” way to ensure young people are safe on the platform.
“We’re really conscious of the concerns that both parents and policymakers have in this area,” Law said on “Squawk Box Europe” on Tuesday. “We want people to have a healthy and safe relationship with the app because of the amount of benefits that people can get when they’re using it.”
It comes as governments around the world are considering measures aimed at improving safety on social media for young people. Australia became the first country in the world to legally enforce a ban in December, and the U.K., France, Greece, and Spain have announced similar restrictions.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Monday that the region will be forging ahead with restricting children’s social media use, including exploring an age limit for platforms.
The measures are based on findings from a special panel on child safety online that Von der Leyen commissioned.
“We in Europe believe that parents bring up our kids, and not predatory algorithms. To that end, let me be very clear: social media is not a toy. While ultimately it is up to parents to decide when children get their first smartphones, what we already have is a consensus that there needs to be a start date for the age children can join social media,” she said.
Earlier this year, Von der Leyen said the EU will take action against “TikTok and its addictive design,” which includes features like infinite scrolling, autoplay, and push notifications.
Balancing a healthy relationship
TikTok’s Law told CNBC that the firm has over 50 preset safety settings for anyone under the age of 16, with measures ranging from a one-hour screen time limit to a 10 p.m. screen takeover telling users to take a break. While some of these measures appear as a warning, younger users can opt to continue using the platform.
Other measures include a restriction on using direct messages or selling on TikTok Shop for anyone under the age of 16.
“All of these are little default aspects, little nudges to make sure that people have a balanced and healthy relationship with our app, because that works in our interests…because if people are using it for too much and are burnt out, they’re not going to get value from it,” Law said, adding that TikTok spent $2 billion on trust and safety last year.
Earlier this year, TikTok settled with a plaintiff in a high-profile social media case that also alleged that social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube harmed young people’s mental health through addictive design features like infinite scrolling.
In the same case, Meta and Google were later found negligent by a jury for failing to warn users about the dangers of using their platforms.
